If you are self-hosted, you almost certainly have email set up through your host. Even the most basic hosting accounts today include IMAP and POP3 email accounts in addition to providing a Web server.

However, Google offers a very solid alternative in the form of Google Apps and it comes in two flavors, a standard version, which is free, and a premium version that costs $50 per year, per user.

These services don’t just let you access your email, they host your email, replacing your on-server mail system completely. This means all mail sent to your domain goes straight to Google’s servers and doesn’t even stop off at yours.

But why would someone go through the trouble of opening up a Google Apps account when they have a free and ready-to-go alternative already as a part of their hosting package?

The answer isn’t simple, but I bet I can convince you to give Google Apps a try.

Why Regular Email Hosting Ain’t All That

If you are currently using your server’s default email system, there are several drawbacks you need to consider carefully:

1. Email Downtime: If your Web server goes down, your email goes down. This can make corresponding during a crisis very difficult and it requires you to maintain backup accounts for working with your host’s support team, your customers, etc. Since your server is almost certainly much less reliable than Google’s, Google Apps will let you remain in contact even when your site is down.
2. Storage Issues: You most likely have a limited amount of storage space on your server. Your email, if you leave it on there (which IMAP does by default), counts against that. Your site may only be a few hundred megs or even less, but your email can be many gigs per user.
3. Server Load: If you run a VPS or dedicated server, your email server, both sending and receiving, can be a major drag on your load and performance, especially if you have many accounts, routinely send large files or are extremely active. Offloading that will saves you considerable resources.

However, the biggest reason people tend to prefer Google Apps isn’t down to the problems above; it’s simply that they prefer Gmail, Google Calendar and Google Docs to the alternatives. Many will use them on their regular Google accounts and love them, but find that getting their self-hosted email into Google to be an ugly and painful process.

How NOT To Use Gmail

Typically, if you prefer Gmail over a traditional email client (or the Webmail clients that most Web hosts offer) there has been one of two ways to use it.

1. Forwarders: Tell your server to forward the mail into your Gmail account and set up Gmail to send mail from that address. It prevents the mail from staying on your server, but means you don’t have a back up copy if you want it.
2. POP3 Checking: Gmail can be set up to check and download mail from external POP accounts. So you simply set up an email account on your server and let Gmail pull it down. The problem is that Gmail only checks mail once every hour, making this approach slow. This approach is more commonly used as a backup for someone using a traditional email client like Outlook.

The problem with both of these solutions is two-fold. First, if your server goes down, you still do not receive email. Second, Gmail’s setup for sending mail as another username is not without flaws, including the use of an “on behalf of” line, unless you use your own SMTP servers.

Google Apps bypasses all of these problems by having the mail go straight to Google’s servers. The message never touches your machine so it never needs to be downloaded or forwarded. Best of all, if you don’t like Gmail, you can use IMAP and POP3 the same as with your own server but without the load or storage issues.

You sacrifice nothing but, potentially, gain a great deal.

How to Set Up Google Apps

If you are interested in setting up Google Apps for your domain, this article on MakeUseOf explains the process in great detail.

In short though, what you will do is create an account, setting yourself up as an administrator, and configure a few initial users (if any).

You will then need to verify ownership of the domain, usually by either uploading an HTML file or making a change to your DNS records, Google Apps will walk you through either of those.

Once you have done that, you will then need to update your DNS records, specifically your MX records, to point them to Google’s servers. On that front, Google will provide you with about half a dozen records to add.

Once you do that and the DNS servers finish propagating out, the changes will be made and you should no longer receive email at your server. You can also then import your existing mail by setting up your new account to pull down the mail from your POP3 server.

Bottom Line

In the end, if you have a self-hosted account and use Gmail as your primary mail service, you are probably a good candidate for Google Apps.

It simply doesn’t make sense to use hacks and unreliable tricks to get your mail into your gmail and then use Gmail’s quirky “additional accounts” interface to send out the mail for you. Not when you can centralize the entire operation for free.

Google Apps isn’t for everyone, but most of those who do use it love it, including me on my domains.

Tags:   gmail • google • google app • Google Apps • google calendar • google docs • imap • pop3 • s google docs